Slipping into Memory
by Lilou88
Summary: A run-in with the slaver Caladrius pushes Revka beyond her breaking point and dredges up less than pleasant memories.


**A/N: **Written for a fic prompt sent to me by Tumblr user sibylla-surana, who asked for Rekva, Zevran and Caldrius - memory. While Zevran did not end up playing as big a role in this ficlet as I intended him to, I still am quite pleased with it as it gave me the chance to take a deeper look into Revka's character in terms of just how far she can be pushed before snapping.

Fair warning that this story gets quite violent and dark - no quick, painless deaths to be found here.

Also, I suppose I should clarify for those of you who may not be familiar with Revka's story: I headcanon her start quite differently from the standard Tabris origin. To give the condensed version, she grew up in one of the alienages in Ferelden where both her parents died when she was sixteen from an illness that tore through during a particularly rough winter. She was left to take care of her five year old brother Ceral on her own and did a fair job of it considering how young she was. Fast forward two years, and Revka is off doing some work for a tailor while Ceral is at home. The Arl's son and two of his friends come through the alienage looking for trouble, spot Ceral and start bullying him. Things get out of hand and Ceral is killed. Revka is of course incensed and goes to the city guard, who flat out refuses to do anything because it was the Arl's son and she's "just a filthy knife-ear". This doesn't go over well with Revka, who gets her hands on a knife from a smuggler and goes after the arl's son and… well, you'll see.

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**Slipping into Memory**

Anger is an emotion Revka has honed into both a weapon and shield. Sharp looks and harsh words come to her as easily as breath; their use the most effective deterrent she has found against her companions' attempts to pry into her thoughts and history. More frequent still are the number of times it has meant the difference between life and death in a skirmish, the spikes of heat and adrenaline it sends burning through her driving her on when stealth and skill fail. It is safe, familiar, one of the precious few factors in her life she is certain she can control.

But this, she thinks as she glares down to where Caladrius has collapsed on the floor, is not the anger she has come to know so well. Anger does not make the edges of her vision dim, drown out sound beneath the rush of her pulse in her ears or leave her mute save the growl she can feel building in the base of her throat. Anger would not leave her with this desire to rip, break, tear the piece of Tevinter scum before her into a thousand mangled pieces with her bare hands.

This is _rage_. Pure, untempered and well remembered in its own right, despite the years which have passed since it last curled itself around her chest and sank its barbs into her heart. It hisses to her in a voice little more than a seductive whisper, promises her strength and the satisfaction of spilled blood if she will only give in to what it insists they both know will come whether she wishes it or not. The temptation claims her in moments, restraint and higher thought thrown gladly to the winds.

"What- er, what is it you're planning on doing with him?" Alistair asks warily as Revka moves, the concern lining his face as easily read as a child's primer. She does not pause to answer, too set on her course to be swayed from it now. He will see for himself soon enough.

By the time she reaches him, Caladrius has begun to pull himself from the floor, his weight shifted to one elbow while he rubs at the back of his head with his free hand. He raises his eyes to meet hers, wincing when he finds her staring down at him with the intensity of a storm on the verge of breaking. His lips move to form the first of what will no doubt be a coward's plea for his life. She does not grant him the opportunity to give voice to it.

Before he has so much as opened his mouth, Revka has lifted her foot to slam the toe of her boot into the slaver's face with all the strength she can muster. He flies backwards from the force of it, voice cracking when he screams, the sound cut through with the satisfying _crunch _of breaking bone. There is not enough time for him to catch himself, his head snapping backwards to slam into the floorboards and bounce before he settles flat out on his back once more, moaning. Blood pours out of his ruined nose and coats his mouth in seconds, his eyes screwing shut as his hands shoot up instinctively to cover it.

Revka takes a single step forward, her feet set at either side of Caladrius's hips so that she straddles him, her eyes sharp as flint as she stares down to where he writhes beneath her. Without so much as a second thought she drops herself over him, her knee driven hard into the center of his groin. Air leaves him in a gasp as he bucks forward with eyes flying wide, no sound made save the throaty rush of his breath while it leaves him. Still wheezing from the pain, he turns his face up to glower at her, bloodied hands reaching out with the barest flicker of spent mana sparking at the tips of his fingers. Whatever frantic plans he has for a final attempt at defense are foiled before he can do more than blink, the wrists of both his hands caught and shoved to the side in one of her own while the other wraps itself around the top of his throat. He fights her hold with a growl, then whimpers as he tries to curl in upon himself, squirming and pulling himself as far away from the knee she grinds harder between his legs as he can manage. She does not let him move far, her grip about his neck tightening enough for the whiskers of his beard to scratch against her skin. His pulse jumps and skitters wildly beneath her fingers, racing even faster when she drags his head off of the ground only to shove it back into the floor again and then again, each strike fanning the slow-burning ire which has anchored itself so firmly in the pit of her stomach.

When she stops herself his eyes have gone wide and unfocused, his lips moving in a string of dazed murmurs too incoherent to understand even if she cared to try. There is no fight left in him for the moment, his hands still and arms slack when she drops her hold of them. She takes a moment to throw her braid back over her shoulder and shove the loose strands which have fallen from it out of her eyes, uncaring of the blood on her hands which now streaks through her hair and across her forehead. The knife she keeps on her belt weighs heavy at her side, it's quillions pressing into her hip when she shifts herself higher above his waist. The voice in the back of her head purrs as she reaches back to pull it free of its sheath, the grip she keeps around it stiff enough for the raised leather of its handle to bite into her palm.

It is then, breath coming sharp in her lungs, mouth crooked in a scowl and bent over Caladrius with her blade held at the ready, that Revka realizes she is no longer here in this moment. Not entirely. A small part of her remains in the present, aware and conscious of the fact that she sits over this bastard slaver on the floor of a Denerim warehouse, her companions and cages filled with hostage elves unwilling yet silent witnesses to her malice. But the rest has gone to another time and place, snapped back into a memory still clear in her mind as the day it took place despite its age.

The dim and musty storeroom has changed to a darkened market alley, the scent of sweat and dust replaced by sweet herbs and spices. Fear, however, remains, the stench of it strong and heady. Before her eyes and without her notice Caladrius has gone, his place taken by a horror-struck youth just old enough to sport his first wisps of hair at his chin. He whimpers beneath her, his soft, noble-born hands scrabbling feebly against the leg she has pinned them under. Revka glances down to the hand she has wrapped about his throat, and is somehow unsurprised to see her knuckles have been made soft once more, her collection of scars vanished behind a wash of unmarked skin. Her leathers are gone as well, replaced by the sleeve of an old but still familiar dress she has not seen in ages, and while she does not reach to see for herself, she is certain that if she were to bring her hand up to brush along the shell of her left ear that she would find it not shortened with a rough-torn edge, but smooth and whole.

The boy whines, bringing Revka out of her trance in a sudden jolt. Her eyes narrow while her grip around his throat tightens further still to make him gasp, pupils blown wide as tears begin to form and spill across his face. It is not real, she knows this. Only a vision brought on by what some might consider delirium, though she is not inclined to call it so herself. This is a gift, a chance to vent old furies which have done nothing but fester in the years passing on a target worthy of them.

She had been rushed by fright before, spurred to act quickly while the chance still stood and the city guard's patrol were far enough away not to hear the child-killer's sniveling. But not now, not this time. False as the circumstances may be, she is no longer forced into any such hurry, free to draw this out for as long or as short a time as she wishes, until retribution is made and the blood her brother spilled is matched in kind, a life paid for a life stolen.

The noble brat moves against her again, crying in earnest now. "Please," he begs, the panicked voice which is both his own and Caladrius's cracking. "Please, mercy."

Lips pulling back to bare her teeth, Revka falls forward until she hovers inches away from his face, close enough for her breath to stir the hair which has fallen against his brow. "No," she says, voice little more than a feral snarl. She brings her knife up to press its point into the underside of his chin, gratified to watch his eyes go wild as he struggles, a trickle of blood running down his chin from his own desperation to escape. She leans further still, until her mouth is even with his ear, her words laced with poison as she spits: "This is for Ceral."

The knife pulls back from his jaw to sink between his ribs, the scream which tears from his throat sweet as any music Revka has ever heard. She basks in it, lets the sound wrap itself around her heart to fuel the hate which races through her swift as floodwater. The voice in her head revels in his pain as much as she, hisses turned to trills of delighted laughter nearly loud enough to drown out the boy's cries. It goads her for more and she is all too happy to oblige, the blade drawn out from his side and sunk into him again, this time lower in the center of his gut.

Again and again she runs the boy through, the tear of flesh and crimson stains growing on the fine silk of his tunic a more satisfying release than she has even known. It swallows her whole, her vision turning red and hazed, the scent of blood thick enough in the air for her to taste its iron tang against her tongue. Sound slips away from her completely, even the voice's coaxing lost to the heavy press of white noise in her ears.

Eventually the boy's struggles weaken, then cease, eyes turning glassy while the pulse at his neck slowly dies away, a last, futile heartbeat fluttering against her fingers before it lies still. She does not stop, only pauses long enough to throw herself upright so that she looms over him from her knees, the knife now clutched between both her hands as she drags it against and plunges it through whatever stretches of intact skin she can find. Arms, shoulders, throat, face, those pretty, dull eyes. Nothing is left safe or whole, the urge to see all this monster is completely destroyed too strong to leave anything unmarred.

A firm hand appears from nowhere against her shoulder. Revka whirls around at its touch, chest heaving as she raises the knife between herself and the newcomer. She lifts her head to glare up into their face, only to blink, taken aback when her vision clears enough for her to recognize them.

"Enough, _amore_," Zevran says quietly, knowingly, his expression hard but not objecting. "It is done."

The alleyway begins to fade, the walls and rough-hewn floorboards of the warehouse solidifying around her more with each passing second. She turns back, still panting to look down at what is no longer her brother's murderer, but Caladrius, or what those of close kin may identify as what's left of him. She shifts as she stares down at him, only then taking notice of the warm, sticky mess of blood and gore which has splattered up the length of her arms and torso, skin and leathers both coated from waist to neck.

Elation drains away like water through a sieve, a hollow acceptance rising to nest itself behind her ribs in its stead. She lowers her knife to slide it back into its sheath, hands shaking enough to make the first several attempts miss their mark. Zevran's hand moves from her shoulder to her arm, his fingers wrapping around her elbow. She lets him help her to her feet, eyes closing to shut out the ruin of a man she has left behind as he begins to walk her towards the door. Alistair and Morrigan are silent as they pass, a fact she does not doubt can be attributed to both her appearance and some unspoken warning in Zevran's eyes.

A small trickle of gratitude begins to work its way between the cracks of the numbness which has settled in her chest as they make their way out of the room and into the hall. Of course he would be the one to understand.

Some people simply need assassinating, after all.


End file.
